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PRESS RELEASE In April 2010 Haunch of Venison presents the first comprehensive survey of Soviet
non-conformist art from the 1980s and early 1990s ever to be mounted in London,
GLASNOST: in collaboration with Galerie Volker Diehl (Berlin) and Diehl + Gallery One (Moscow).
Soviet Non-Conformist Art
from the 1980s Featuring one hundred works by almost fifty different artists, the exhibition focuses
16 April – 26 June 2010 on the period before, during and after Glasnost and Perestroika, examining the
profound influence that Gorbachev’s liberalising reforms had on the art that was
being made at this transformative moment in the USSR’s history. Rather than
Image:
offering an exhaustive survey, the exhibition seeks to introduce Western audiences
Erik Bulatov to the stylistic diversity, dynamic spirit and key exponents of the unofficial art of this
Perestroika period.
1989
Oil on canvas
89.5x210cm Encouraged by Gorbachev’s insistence on transparency and freedom of speech,
Courtesy Alex Lachmann Soviet artists in the primary centres of Moscow and Leningrad retaliated against
the official, state-sanctioned art that had dominated the Soviet Union for decades
and began to produce work which was radical, experimental, and provocative in
intent. They developed artistic strategies which were often openly critical of the
official institutions of Soviet culture and sought to communicate the reality of
immediate lived experience in stark contrast to Soviet ideology’s nostalgia for
a utopian past.

Glasnost: Soviet Non-Conformist Art from the 1980s examines the various strands
of this vital underground movement. It bears witness to a radical change in
aesthetics, an eclectic fusion of media and approach, and a political resistance
to totalitarian power. Characterised by a new-found individualism, the work
in this exhibition represents the sum of a number of different personal styles,
from the conceptual and the analytic to the jocular and ironic. It features Eduard
Gorokhovsky, Ivan Chuikov, Semyon Faibisovich and other key figures of the
Moscow scene, as well as the most influential of the Leningrad-based New Artists,
such as Timur Novikov and Sergei Bugaev (known as Afrika).

Artists such as Alexander Kosolapov and Komar & Melamid (who had emigrated
to New York by the 1980s) practised Sots Art, reworking the myths and tropes of
Socialist Realism with biting irony and a pop aesthetic inherited from the West;

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other émigré artists such as Ilya Kabakov and Erik Bulatov worked in the tradition
of Moscow conceptualism, subtly exploring the intellectual manipulation of mass
consciousness; a third group of artists spoke out without a Soviet accent, look-
ing instead to European contemporary art for genuine relevance and meaning; yet
another enriched the borrowed languages of the German Junge Wilde (‘wild youth’)
and the French Figuration Libre (‘free figuration’) movements with images assimi-
lated from the Russian avant-garde.

Assembled over the past decade, the paintings, sculpture, photographs and
installations in this ground-breaking exhibition represent an attempt to deconstruct
the historical context of the Glasnost/Perestroika era and to convey the artistic
revolution enabled by the unprecedented social and political change that Russia
underwent in the 1980s and early 1990s.

A major bilingual publication featuring texts by Olga Sviblova, Ekaterina Degot,

Joseph Backstein, and Boris Groys will accompany the exhibition.

With support from the Kira Foundation.

For information and images please contact Bomi Odufunade:

T +44 (0)20 7495 5050
E bodufunade@hofv.com

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Registered in England No. 04421085

VAT No. 799013791
Haunch of Venison Partners Ltd.
Registered Office: 8 King Street
St James’s, London SW1Y 6QT
HAUNCH OF VENISON LONDON 6 Burlington Gardens
London W1S 3ET
T + 44 (0) 20 7495 5050
F + 44 (0) 20 7495 4050
United Kingdom london@haunchofvenison.com
www.haunchofvenison.com

EDITORS’ NOTES

Full list of exhibited artists:

Giya (Guram) Abramishvili, Yuri Albert, Sergej Basilev, Pyotr Belenok, Erik Bulatov,
Andrey Bezukladnikov, Sergei Borisov, Alexander Brodsky, Anatoli Brusilovsky,
Sergei (Afrika) Bugaev, Gor Chahal, Igor Chatskin, Olga Chernysheva, Ivan Chuikov,
Semyon Faibisovich, Nicolai Filatov, Andrey Filippov, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Evgeny
Gorokhovsky, Sven Gundlach, Georgy Gurianov, Ilya Kabakov, Andrey Khlobystin,
Ilya Kitup, Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid, Maria Konstantinova, Alexander
Kosolapov, Nikolai Kozlov, Leonid Lamm, Konstantin Latyshev, Rostislav Lebedev,
Mikhail Magaril, Igor Makarevich,Oleg Maslov, Boris Matrossov, Boris Mikhailov,
Sergey Mironenko, Andrei Monastyrski, Timur Novikov, Boris Orlov, Nikolai Ovchin-
nikov, Pavel Pepperstein, Arkadi Petrov, Mikhail Roginsky, Andrei Roiter, Sergey
Shablavin, Sergey Shutov, Leonid Sokov, Alexei Sundukov, Natalia Turnova, Oleg
Vassiliev, Vladimir Voinov, Sergey Volkov, Dmitry Vrubel, Vadim Zakharov, Konstan-
tin Zvezdochetov.

Haunch of Venison
Founded in 2002 by Harry Blain and Graham Southern, contemporary art gallery
Haunch of Venison works with some of the most important and exciting artists
working today, presenting a broad and critically acclaimed programme of exhibi-
tions at international gallery spaces in London, Berlin and New York. In March 2009,
Haunch of Venison moved their London programme to the 21,500ft² gallery spaces
at 6 Burlington Gardens.

www.haunchofvenison.com

Volker Diehl
Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin, was created in 1990 and focuses on contemporary art
with international relevance. In March 2008, Volker Diehl opened Diehl + Gallery
One with an exhibition by Jenny Holzer, the first Western gallery to open in Moscow.
The inaugural show was followed by a group show of Russian political art from the
1980s (Sots Art), Glasnost/ Perestroika, and solo shows of Wim Delvoye, Zhang
Huan, Jaume Plensa and Olga Chernysheva.

www.galerievolkerdiehl.com

Registered in England No. 04421085

VAT No. 799013791
Haunch of Venison Partners Ltd.
Registered Office: 8 King Street
St James’s, London SW1Y 6QT